Russia is among the seven countries that have quantum machines with 50 qubits or more. And only the USA, China, and Russia have working quantum computers on all four known physical platforms: atoms, photons, superconductors, and ions.

The 50-qubit computer based on ytterbium ions is located at the Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI). It is the most powerful in Russia. It occupies an entire room and consists of several modules.

This summer, the computer underwent testing. In particular, scientists implemented Grover’s algorithm for searching an unordered database, calculated the structure of several molecules, and simulated a number of dynamic systems. Tasks also included recognizing simple photographs and factoring numbers into primes. The main result is that the quantum computer operates stably.

Images above: Rosatom is a massive organization and world leader in atomic energy production.

“Inside this metal box is a vacuum chamber with an ion trap. In the trap, ytterbium-171 ions are suspended in a deep vacuum. They need to be cooled to about 1 millikelvin. For this, a system of four lasers and many mirrors and optical modulators is used. Thanks to the cooling, we can detect the ions. This black tube is the detection unit, inside which is a highly sensitive camera. The glowing dots on the monitor are ions. To manipulate them in a quantum state, we have ultra-stable lasers,” said LPI research associate Ilya Semerikov.

The quantum computer at LPI is constantly being improved, gradually increasing its power — starting from two qubits. In a neighboring laboratory, the next-generation machine is being assembled.